Child migrants a neglected challenge

As Congress dithers over immigration reform, the children of Central America aren’t waiting.

The past few years have seen a steady rise in the number of teenagers and younger boys and girls crossing the Southwest border unaccompanied by their parents or adult relatives. Many are fleeing drug and gang-related violence in nations like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. But many also have family in the United States, and sometimes walk across the long land bridges with phone numbers in hand.

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In Washington-speak, these are Unaccompanied Alien Children or UACs. And their numbers could approach 66,000 this year — more than four times the level of just two years ago.

In the spring of 2012 and again last January, Congress stepped in to provide extra money to care for and resettle these migrant children. But as the numbers continue to grow this spring, it’s become a humanitarian and legal crisis — the full costs of which no one talks about much in today’s political climate.

“This is a problem of immense enormity and terrible hurt,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers on Wednesday evening as his panel took the first steps toward approving a $39.2 billion budget for the Department of Homeland Security. And the Kentucky Republican chastised the White House for showing “no leadership at all” in its budget for the coming year.

Indeed, President Barack Obama surprised many by asking for no increase in UAC funding in his March plan for new 2015 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Frustrated Democrats accuse the White House of lowballing the costs to make room for the president’s initiatives under the strict spending caps negotiated last December for 2015.

Having been caught short last winter, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) demanded a white paper from the administration on the crisis and forced an April 22 meeting of top staff from the White House budget office and four major line departments: State, Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.

It was then that the administration acknowledged that the flow of migrant children could double again next year to 127,000 and the costs for HHS may approach $2 billion — twice the $868 million in the president’s UAC request.

No budget amendment has yet followed.

“A $1.1 billion gap that needs to be addressed based on the tremendous humanitarian need,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) at a May Senate hearing — weeks after the April meeting. In the same forum, Mikulski, a former social worker, didn’t hide her exasperation with HHS witnesses.

“We don’t want to warehouse them. We try to put them in foster care,” she said of the children. “Our failure to appropriate could exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. I need numbers.”

“Tell me what you need, and don’t stick us with the bill at the end. I feel you are not telling me what you need. I really don’t feel that HHS is telling me what you need.”

Ironically, it fell to House Republicans — who have most resisted immigration reform — to take the first step Wednesday evening.

Their 94-page Homeland bill is again heavily border-centric: mandating a minimum number of detention beds, adding money for border protection even as it rejects $570 million in new aviation fees to help pay for transportation security.

But one number that stands out is a nearly $77 million, tenfold increase in what the administration requested for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to cover the costs of transporting the children to HHS resettlement facilities.

That increase reflects the new estimate of 127,000 — also cited by Rogers in his remarks. “It’s quite a flood, it’s overwhelming,” said Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), who chairs the panel. And in an op-ed last month, Carter blamed the White House for creating what he called then “an invitational posture for illegal immigrants.”